New Delhi: Two doctors of Pune’s Sassoon Hospital switched the blood sample of the 17-year-old teen whose late-night dash in his family’s Porsche left two dead last Sunday.
Speaking to the media Monday, Pune Commissioner of Police Amitesh Kumar said that the sample taken at the hospital — where the minor boy was brought for a medical check-up after the crash — was “thrown in a dustbin” and that the blood sample of another person, who had not consumed alcohol, was sent to police forensics.
“During further investigation, we found that Chief Medical Officer Srihari Halnor replaced this blood sample. He did so on the instructions of the Forensic Medicine Department of Sassoon head, Ajay Tawre,” added Kumar.
The Pune crime branch has arrested both doctors on charges of manipulating the samples.
Initial reports had claimed that there was no alcohol in the boy’s system, but CCTV clips from the bars, where he went with friends that night to celebrate his Class 12 board results, showed him drinking.
Kumar further said the deceit was revealed after cops matched the forensic report with the blood collected from Sassoon. The doctors sent it to the police in a sealed cover with the boy’s name written on it.
“After this, we detained the doctors who had sealed this report… During preliminary investigation, it was revealed he had taken the sample of the juvenile accused but had thrown it in the dustbin and replaced it with the sample of another person and sent it to the forensics,” he said.
Amitesh Kumar said that Sections 120 (B), 467 Forgery and 201, 213, 214, destruction of evidence etc charges have been added to the case.
#WATCH | Pune car accident case | Pune Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar says “Sections 120 (B), 467 Forgery and 201, 213, 214 Destruction of evidence have been added in this matter. We received the forensic report yesterday and it has been revealed that the sample collected at… pic.twitter.com/UdurvDuVyu
— ANI (@ANI) May 27, 2024
Allegedly driving drunk after the revelry that night, the boy rammed the luxury car into two 24-year-old engineers who were going home on a bike. Ashwini Kostha and Anish Awadhiya died on the spot.
There was much outrage after the boy, who is from a prominent real estate family, was granted bail within 15 hours of the crash on conditions that most called trivial. He was asked to write a 300-word essay on road accidents, ordered to work with traffic cops for 15 days and seek counselling for his drinking habit.
The Juvenile Justice Board later modified the order and sent him to an observation home. The boy’s father and grandfather have also been arrested in the case. The family driver Gangadhar told the police that he was aggressively asked by the duo to take the blame for the crash.
Also read: Bid to ‘blame’ driver, tycoon’s arrest & ‘cover-up’ — what we know about Pune Porsche case so far